


The Game of Scrabble

by Aloneindarknes7



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Board Games, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Public Display of Affection, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:25:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloneindarknes7/pseuds/Aloneindarknes7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hater, Wander, Sylvia, and Peepers play Scrabble. It's exactly as it sounds. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Game of Scrabble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacecrunched](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacecrunched/gifts).



> This fic was all because of [Spacecrunched](http://spacecrunched.tumblr.com/). She kept encouraging my headcanons as she was sharing her own with me. Eventually we began rambling about a bunch of silly little ideas and this one stuck with me until I just had to write it. This can be an AU or future fic or whatever you want. It's pretty much just shameless fluff.

It surprised him to be smiling. The whole night had been filled with surprises, but this was the only one that really affected Hater.

Unlike Peepers, he already expected that Wander would win at the game. Wander traveled all over different galaxies and made friends everywhere he went. That meant he had to be pretty good at understanding different languages. If he knew different languages then he had to be good with words. It just made sense to him. Not that he’d explain it to Peepers. It was much more fun to watch his commander get more and more frustrated as the game went on.

“Okay, there’s no way that’s a real word!” Peepers accused as Wander set down the last of the letter tiles. “You’re just making things up now.”

“Sorry, Peeps,” Sylvia held the Intergalactic Scrabble Dictionary open on her lap. “It’s in here.”

“Let me see that!” Peepers climbed up and over the table to get to the book.

Sylvia grabbed the bowl of snacks before it could be spilled, or worse, knocked over. Peepers glared at the book and shut it with a mumbled, “But I’ve never even heard of such a word before.”

“It’s a pretty common term over in the Nebula Galaxy.” Wander shrugged as Peepers made his way back to his seat with only one ‘accidental’ kick to Wander’s newly drawn tiles.

“Alright, so that’s fifty points for using all seven tiles. You used a ‘Z’ on the triple letter cell so that’s another thirty, combined with all the other tiles which add up to, let’s see, eight, thirteen, seventeen, okay twenty eight, that means another one hundred and forty seven points added to Wander’s score.” Sylvia jotted the points down on the score paper that she had been entrusted with. “You want to check my math for the totals of this round?” Sylvia offered to Peepers.

Sighing, Peepers shook his head. Sylvia’s math hadn’t been wrong yet, despite how much Peepers wanted it to be. “No, go ahead and read the totals.” Peepers had his hands crossed over his chest as he glared at Wander. Wander was humming a song and bobbing his head along to his made up tune.

“Well, after an exciting five rounds, Wander’s in the lead with seven hundred and fifty two points. Peepers has one hundred and eighty six points. Hater has sixty three points, and I have a whooping five points thanks to my brilliant placement of the word pie.” Sylvia grinned good naturedly at the board. “So, do we want to call it game? We’re running low on snacks,” she commented as she dumped the remaining bowl of chips down her open snout.

“No, I refuse to lose to this orange moron!” Peepers shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “Er, I mean, the night’s still young,” Peepers rubbed sheepishly at the back of his head. “We can go a few more rounds, right, sir?” Peepers looked quickly over at Hater, afraid that his comment towards Wander would offend his boss.

Hater finally looked up from his tiles. “Huh, what was the question?” He took one of his tiles and tossed it back into the bag to swap it for another. Oh, perfect! He needed that ‘L’.

“Do you want to keep playing, bonehead?” Sylvia asked.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Hater shrugged and placed the ‘L’ tile behind the ‘I’. He supposed that only having seven tiles meant that the ‘ILOVYOU’ would be the best he could do. Or maybe he should put the ‘I’ back and hope for an ‘E’. That could work just as well.

“We don’t have to keep track of points. I always just found this game to be more fun to see how many words we can come up with together as a whole group!” Wander suggested.

“We’re playing by the rules.” Peepers glared as he twisted his hands around the crumpled rule booklet. “This is a game of linguist contest, not some silly word art!” 

“Okay, then I’ll go grab more snacks real quick,” Wander offered. He winked in Hater’s direction as he took the empty bowl from Sylvia. Hater smiled at him and absentmindedly traced over one of his tiles. 

“Don’t even think about it, Peepers.” Slyvia’s tail came up on the table to tip Wander’s tiles over. “No peeking at his letters.”

“It’s not like it could possibly help me!” Peepers protested. “I’d probably plan against one word and then he’d use them to come up with another. I don’t get it. I’m a certified genius. He’s a roaming space hick. How is he so good at this game?” 

Sylvia shrugged. “Wander’s just good at a lot of different things. So you should stop trying to distract him with footsie and focus on your own tiles.” She raised an eyebrow at him with a smirk. “Or are you trying to make Hater and me jealous?”

“Please, he thinks Hater’s the one who has been doing it all night.” Peepers rolled his eye. “And besides, I don’t think my feet can reach that far under the table to reach you,” he mumbled with a light blush to his eye.

Sylvia smiled and moved her tail to wrap around Peeper’s waist. The commander reached down to stroke the tail.

“Gross! Keep your PDAs to yourselves,” Hater complained.

“Like you haven’t been making goo-goo eyes at Wander all night,” Sylvia challenged. “Come off it, Hater, you’re the biggest sap out of all of us, and that includes Wander.”

Hater quickly flipped his tiles over. “I am not!” He protested.

“Of course you’re not,” Wander agreed as he pulled himself back up into his chair, pushing the newly filled snack bowl back over towards Sylvia. “What were we talking about?” 

“Nothing important, now let’s get back to the game. Sylvia, you start this round.” Peepers insisted. 

Hater looked across the table at Wander. Wander caught his eyes and slumped in his seat. Suddenly, a shoe was bumping at his knee and slowly dragging down. Wander’s tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on reaching down to Hater’s own feet with his short legs.

Grinning, Hater shifted his legs to rest one ankle over his knee and touched his shoe with Wander’s. Wander shot him a grin as he wiggled his shoe against Hater’s. Hater chuckled and raised his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Incoming, bonehead.” Hater jerked as a piece of popcorn smacked him between the eyes. He glared at the Zbornak as she snickered. “Finally, something got your attention away from your boyfriend. It’s your turn.” 

Hater looked at the board and scowled. There was a perfect opportunity for him to make a word and use a double point tile. He placed his “LOV” down to connect with the “E” off of Sylvia’s “PIE”. 

“Oh, that’s a good move, Hatey!” Wander praised. Peepers was staring between the new letters and his tiles. He then began to frantically jot something down on his notepad. 

“Sap,” Sylvia teased with a fond smile as she passed him the tile pouch.

“Shut it, Zbornak. Just count up my points.” Hater glanced over at Wander. Wander was making a little heart shape with his fingers at him. Hater couldn’t help but smile as a warm feeling spread throughout his rib cage. 

That was when it hit him. He was surprised to find himself enjoying the evening. He was having genuine fun playing a board game. Not just any board game, but Scrabble of all things. A year ago he would have laughed in Peepers’ face at the suggestion of playing a game he saw fit only for nerds. 

He was being teased by a once-hated-enemy and didn’t mind it. He was listening to his subordinate rant and rave about the science behind linguists. He was playing footsie with his boyfriend under the table. It was a completely domestic scene. 

Hater wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else at that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](http://aloneindarknes7.tumblr.com/)


End file.
